1. Field
The application of communication skills, such as learning foreign languages and cultures, learning other skills where face to face communication plays a key role (including law enforcement and clinical practice), conducting plant safety inspections, and providing customer service.
2. Description of Related Art
Methods and products for teaching foreign languages are known. One such product is called Rosetta Stone. It presents images, spoken utterances, and written phrases, and has the user indicate which image matches which spoken utterance or phrase. It has some ability to generate feedback on the learner's speech, by presenting spectrograms of the learner's speech which the learner must then analyze and compare with spectrograms of native speakers.
Another product that is used to teach foreign languages is the TeLL me More product series. It includes lesson pages that present language material. It includes some structured dialog practice, where the learner hears an utterance and sees it in printed form, sees a set of possible responses (typically two to four), and selects one of the presented responses. The choices may not vary according to the learner's level of proficiency. This may differ from real conversation since, in real conversation, speakers are not given preset choices of things to say at each turn in the conversation, but instead may decide for themselves what to say and how to say it.
Virtual Conversations provides a form of conversational interaction. The product plays a video clip of a person speaking, and then presents a small set of written responses. The user can read one of the presented responses into the microphone, and if the system recognizes the user's speech, the system will play another video clip based upon that response.
The MILT prototype language learning system also supports a form of conversational interaction. MILT displays an on-screen character in a room or other environment. The user can speak a series of commands for the system to carry out, such as commands to walk forward, pick up an object, etc. In response the character can either carry out the command or reply indicating that it did not understand the command.
Interactive games like Herr Kommissar 1.5—emulates dialog with a computer character, via text. The game includes some language instruction, but presumes that the learner already has some ability in the language. The language instruction that is included interrupts the flow of the game, unlike in natural conversational interaction. However, it may not effectively train learners at different levels of proficiency, nor provide a means to measure the success of the learning effort.
Other systems such as MRE, and SASO, and VECTOR emulate conversations. MRE and SASO support unstructured conversational interaction within a specific task domain. VECTOR may not support conversational interaction, but may instead have the user select from a set of presented responses at each stage in the dialog.
Cocinella simulates conversation in a foreign language, where at each stage the learner can read from a presented set of possible responses or else recall the expected responses from memory. Interactive lessons may be limited to opportunities to practice the specific phrases used in the game dialog.
These systems may not adequately train the user in the foreign language. They may not keep the attention of the user, result in the user being able to readily transfer his or her training to a real-life environment, be well suited to learners at different proficiency levels, aid the learner in improving his or her pronunciation, and/or induce the learner to fully participate in the learning process.